Artifact Weapons - Full Guide

The Legion represents the greatest threat of our world we have ever faced.

In order to fight this ultimate enemy, we need the ultimate weapons.

We need weapons with greater power than anyone ever had before in order to stand a chance.

That’s when artifacts come into play.

Every single specialization (36) in the game is going to have their own artifact to seek out, and to wield and to use against The Legion.

Depending on your class and your spec, that will heavily effect the way your story plays out and what you are interacting with in terms of the system.

How do I get an Artifact Weapon in Legion?

When you begin your Legion experience after the events of the Broken Shore you get a quest that starts a questline that is specific for your class and even spec. This questline will allow you to:

Seek out the Artifact for your spec

Follow your destiny and heed that calling to take up this ultimate weapon.

For example

If you are a Retribution Paladin, you will returning to the location of the Broken Shore, to find and to seek out Ashbringer, were it fall in battle and is lost. So that you can take it up and wield it.

If you are a Protection Warrior, you will follow up on the legends of an ancient Vrykul king. Who was buried with a sword and shield, forged from the scales of the dragon Neltharion (Deathwing). You will delve into his tomb and overcome the ancient curse that lay there in order to wield those weapons for yourself.

If you are a Frost Death Knight, it will be the ultimate Frost Death Knight weapon Frostmourne. Frostmourne was shattered, but the first thing you are going to do is to go to Ice Crown Citadel and find and seek out the shards of the weapon after the battle with The Lich King. You will take those shards up and reforged them into a pair of rune blades.

What is Artifact Power?

Each Artifact Weapon has its own Talent tree in which you use Artifacts Power resources to unlock new abilities within your weapon.

How do I earn Artifact Power?

You will earn artifact power through a wide variety of activities:

Completing major quest line (quest bosses)

Completing quests that are class/spec specific

Killing dungeons bosses

Killing Raid bosses

From Rare drops

Outdoor Objectives

Winning Battlegrounds

Winning Arenas

Any major activity in the game

What are Artifact Traits and how does it work?

When you get enough Artifact Power, you can upgrade the power of your Artifact Weapon.

The weapon gets upgraded when you choose to unlock a new Trait or upgrade an old Trait in the Weapon UI Trait tree.

Each class has their own weapon which means that each class has their own class/spec specific Trait tree.

The first Trait on the weapon is for free and you get that Trait directly when you get the weapon.

Each Trait has a Rank on it, some has only Rank 1 and some has up to Rank 3. Meaning, Traits can be upgraded with for example better stats.

The amount of Ranks is the amount of how many times you can upgrade that Trait.

Each Trait costs different amounts of Artifact Power depending on: * how awesome the Trait is * what Rank number you upgrading to.

There are 2 different types of Traits: * Minor Trait (A passive ability) * Major Trait (An ability that you place on your bar and use it when needed)

The first thing you will spend Artifact Power on is on an Major Trait, this goes for all.

After you unlock the first Major Trait, your Trait Tree will open up with different paths, so you will have an option on which direction you want to follow.

These options give you the chance to make choices on what you want to focus on and how you want our character to be: * Really good at single target fights * Really good at AoE fights * Really good at survival

You will be able to unlock all the Traits, but it will take a while.

Minor Traits

The Minor Traits have up to Rank 3 and you need to upgrade all 3 Ranks in able to unlock the next trait on the Trait Tree.

The Minor Traits that costs only 1 Trait are more utility based.

Major Traits

Depending on what type of style you want to play, The Major Traits are the ones that will guide your path along the Trait Tree

The Major Traits are more powerful. They are modifier addons to major class abilities and sometimes even core abilities.

What are Relics in Legion?

Relic is a new type of item in Legion.

Relics are special items that you can socket into your Artifact weapon to increase its power, namely: * Increase the Item level of the Artifact Weapon * Increase the Stats of the Artifact weapon * Give Bonus Rates on Artifact weapon Traits (Example: A Trait that has Rank 3 can be upgraded to Rank 4 or 5, leading to higher effect of that trait)

Each Specific Relic can be common, rare or (epic?). The better, the higher item level upgrade and even a chance to upgrade Major Traits as well!

On the top of the Artifact weapon UI, there are symbols that tells you what Type of Relic is needed to upgrade your weapon.

How do I change the appearance of my Artifact weapon?

The base weapon has the look we all know and love. Then there is an upgraded version of the base style, as well as variants such as an Ashbringer made out of fire, shadow, or lightning

There is an own menu in which you can upgrade different looks and colors of your Artifact weapon. The weapon is an expression of the character you want to play. Things that you value and accomplished in the world.

These different looks to your weapon are things you will be able to unlock through a large variety of needs. You unlock different looks when

Leveling up your weapon

Raiding

PvP

Achievements

Questlines

Hitting max level

When hitting max level, you will get a quest that is a start of a quest line involving outdoor content, interacting with major factions in Legion and also some dungeon content. When completing this quest line, the reward will be: * Unlocking some new Traits * Unlock a new model for your weapon.

At endgame, there are several questlines that specializes in different content, which rewards unlocking new models.

How do I change the colors of my Artifact Weapon?

1) You can unlock new colors for your weapon by completing Achievements. Such as

Finish the questline in a content.

Discovered an entire content

Earned reputation with a certain faction.

2) There are also some specific colors that can be unlocked by certain quests tied to the history of your Artifact weapon.

Example of UI on color changing weapon:

The Artifact weapon bonus Trait (35)

Maximum rank on traits is 54.

After hitting 34 traits on your weapon you can put the next trait level on your Bonus trait. The Bonus trait can be leveled/ranked up 20 times, leading to a maximum trait of 54.